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Vote, Vote , Vote for Mr. Willey
It was in, or about, 1964, dating anything before
yesterday with any degree of precision is difficult, old age and
intemperance having taken their toll, that I was first disenfranchised. I
remember being particularly offended because I was, at the time,
considered old enough to risk life and limb for Queen and country but not
sufficiently in control of my senses to make a rational mark on a ballot
paper. Ever since, as a seven year old, I had marched round the school
playground, with my peers, chanting, "Vote, vote, vote for Mr. Willey"
I had been looking forward to the day when I could help shape the destiny
of the civilised world. When the moment came it was snatched from me
simply because someone had forgotten to register me as an elector.
Over the forty years since then I have, up to recently, always tried to
cast my vote, even though, as someone remarked, most politicians are as
bent as a chapel hat-peg. Having seen what a pig's ear parliamentarians of
any party can make of our lives, I am now beginning to realise that what
we face at the ballot box is not so much a choice as a dilemma.
Prospective Members of Parliament continue to offer us the earth, or even
heaven upon earth, but we know that, whichever side they are on, left,
right, or centre, whatever they say is no more than a fantasy, conjured up
by smoke and mirrors. With a touch of unexpected irony, this year the
General Election has been called on a day on which we celebrate an event
which really did shape our destiny, without the aid of unsolicited
door-steppers, highly coloured leaflets, party political broadcasts, or
bad tempered rhetoric.
May 5th can be the day when we commit ourselves to another five years of
lies, taxation, and even more lies (it doesn't matter where you put the X
- it's a lose/lose situation) or it could be the day when we thank God
that Jesus ascended into heaven, the real heaven, not the one described on
those glossy pamphlets. On Ascension Day, according to S. Luke, Jesus told
his disciples that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon
them and the men attired in white added that they would see him return in
the same way that he had gone.
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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